Re: Astronomers find tiny planet orbiting tiny star (Forwarded)

Andrew Yee wrote:
An international team of astronomers led by David Bennett of the
University of Notre Dame has discovered an extra-solar planet of about
three Earth masses orbiting a star with a mass so low that its core may
not be large enough to maintain nuclear reactions. The result was
presented Monday (June 2) at the American Astronomical Society annual
meeting in St. Louis.

<snip>

This result also supports the 1996 prediction by Bennett and Sun Hong Rhie
that the microlensing method should be sensitive to Earth-mass planets.

"I'll hazard a prediction that the first extra-solar Earth-mass planet
will be found by microlensing," Bennett said. "But we'll have to be very
quick to beat the radial velocity programs and NASA's Kepler mission,
which will be launched in early 2009."

So is a 3 Earth mass planet still considered an Earth mass planet?

Yousuf Khan
.